Creating an Auction

This guide describes the options on the auction edit screen when creating or editing an auction (Sale Manager → select or create an auction).

Basic fields

Name

Name of the auction.
A short label for this sale (e.g. "Spring Bull Sale 2025"). Max 50 characters. Shown in auction lists and reports.

Sale Date

Date of the auction.
The primary (start) date of the sale. Required. Use your site’s standard date format (e.g. MM-DD-YYYY).

2nd Date

End date for multi-day sales.
Leave blank for single-day sales. For sales that run more than one day, enter the last day here so reports and filters can treat the sale as a date range.

Type

Kind of sale.
Determines how the sale is categorized and, for some types, how the app behaves. Choose one:

Functional differences: Most of the time Type is for labeling and reporting only (e.g. it appears on the auction list and in reports). Two types change behavior:

• Private Treaty – Treated specially when recording sales (Batch Jobs → Sales and animal-level sales): the animals you sell do not have to be in the auction’s roster first. Other types require animals to be in the auction. Private Treaty auctions also always show in the sales batch job’s auction list (even outside the usual date range), and the app can use a convention like an auction named “Private Treaty Sale” as the default when recording private treaty sales. The Repeat Buyers report can filter by “Private Treaty” so you see only those sales.
• Auction – The Repeat Buyers report can filter by “Auction” so you see only live/auction sales.

Consignment, Silent Auction, and Video Auction are not used in conditional logic; they are for categorization and display only.

Site

Location of the auction.
Physical location or venue (e.g. city, arena name). Max 50 characters. Used on catalogs and reports.

Active

Checkbox / Y or N.

• Y – Auction is active and available for bidding, invoicing, and reports.
• N – Auction is inactive (e.g. archived or not yet open). Inactive auctions are typically hidden or limited in day-of and reporting flows.

Keep active set to Y for current sales; set to N when the sale is finished or not in use.

Terms and payment

Terms

Payment terms wording.
Defaults to Due Upon Receipt. This text is used on invoices and in communications. You can change it to any short phrase (e.g. "Net 30", "Due at sale", "50% down"). Max 30 characters.

Due Date

Payment due date.
A single date field. Use it for the default or target due date for payments for this sale, if your process uses one. Optional; leave blank if you only use the Terms text.

Invoice comments

Invoice Comments

Comments printed on every invoice.
Opened via the Invoice Comments link on the auction edit screen. Whatever you enter in that window is stored as the auction’s invoice comment and is printed on every invoice for this auction (e.g. payment instructions, wire details, or pickup notes). Edit there; there is no separate “invoice comments” field in the main auction form.

Set to merge

Set to merge

Add all animals from an animal set to this auction.

• Choose an animal set from the dropdown (e.g. MySet.userid).
• Click Merge Set.
• All animals in that set are added to this auction’s roster (no duplicates).

Use this to quickly build the sale from a pre-made set (e.g. “Sale consignments” or “Spring sale lots”) instead of adding animals one by one. The set must be one you can edit or that is shared with you.

Display and behavior

Print Ownership (Y/N)

Whether to show ownership on invoices and loadout sheets.

• Y – Invoices and loadout sheets include ownership information (e.g. consignor / owner).
• N – Ownership is omitted from those documents.

Default is Y. Set to N if you do not want ownership printed on buyer-facing paperwork.

Edit Name (Y/N)

Whether the animal name can be edited during Complete Bids.

• Y – Users can change the animal’s displayed name when completing bids for this auction.
• N – The animal name is read-only during Complete Bids.

Default is N. Set to Y only when your sale process requires editing names at bid-entry time (e.g. lot names or display names that differ from the master record).

Quick reference

Save the form with Submit after filling or changing fields. Use Merge Set only when you have chosen a set and want to add those animals to the auction.